Arsenic and Old Lace

published:
Fri, 6-Feb-2004
|
updated: Wed, 4-Jan-2017

Jonathan Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph
Kesselring for Star Bar Players at The Lon Chaney Theater. Directed by
David Hastings. January 2001.

A classic American comedy from the 1940s. It's a hoot of a show, very
silly and farcical, and we went hell for leather for it. It was filmed
in 1944 with Cary Grant as the "nice" brother Mortimer and directed by
Frank Capra a couple of years before he really made his name with
It's a Wonderful Life.

I played Jonathan Brewster, the evil gangster brother. That part was
originally written for Boris Karloff, and so I played Jonathan as a
kind of mix between Dracula and Frankenstein's monster. I just loved
my initial entrance: the lights were out as the Brewsters tried to
pretend they weren't in, the front door swung open and I was there,
backlit and my body and face sharply outlined. I stood there for 3 or
4 seconds, before walking majestically into the dark room. Great fun.

The director and cast were great too, many friends were present:
David, Ricky, Greg, Bonnie, and Phil. Greg did a brilliant rendition
of Dr. Einstein (a part played in the movie by Peter Lorre), and we
just had the best time.

Things to recall and savor in the remembrance? The body and the window
seat. In case you didn't know, the two old Brewster aunts of Mortimer
are in the habit of dispatching lonely old bachelors to the other side
with their own arsenic-laced wine. One of them ends up in the window
seat (I can't remember how), only to be discovered by various other
people, including the drunken Dr. Einstein, who manages to fall into
it in the dark. Greg dutifully fell into the window seat, jarring the
window, which slowly opened, inadvertently locking him into the seat.
I was behind the set and saw what had happened. I gently had to reach
in hoping the audience wouldn't notice and pull the window shut, so
that Greg could get out. Of course, the body was a shop dummy kind of
thing, and the arms and legs would tend to fall off at the wrong
moment.

There was also the torture scene. Greg was a nurse at one of the local
hospitals and was able to borrow a few old surgical instruments. I had
the greatest time snapping on the latex gloves with a mad gleam in my
eye and trying out some of the nastier looking implements. Brilliant,
just brilliant. (I really enjoyed working with Greg, but unfortunately
he moved to Atlanta shortly thereafter.)

What else? Stephen, playing one of the officers, had to bash me over
the head with a night-stick. We had a joke night-stick made of foam
and being hit with it was like being hit with a pillow. But, for
whatever reason, he just refused to do it, hitting me on the upstage
shoulder instead. Very annoying, especially as I had this whole bit of
shtick going on after being hit (I'd drop to my knees, with a silly
smile on my face, cross-eyed, and then slowly crash face-down on the
floor).

Something I'm not too happy about: I auditioned and got the part of
Jonathan and, after the first two or three rehearsals, I found out
that I would miss a couple of performances on the second weekend of
the show (a conference elsewhere). I felt really bad about it and
offered to resign from the show. David wouldn't hear of it though and
said that he cast me as Jonathan because he really wanted me in that
role. He decided to do perform Jonathan himself for those two
performances. Nevertheless, I did feel somewhat guilty about it all,
for the cast and for the audience, especially after the Indy review
came out.

Cast

Abby Brewster

Bonnie Ross

The Rev. Dr. Harper

Phil Ginsburg

Teddy Brewster

Joe Ruffini

Officer Brophy

Stephen Edwards

Officer Klein

Tobias Severn

Martha Brewster

Marge Gentry

Elaine Harper

Heidi Steggall

Mortimer Brewster

Ricardo Vila-Roger

Mr. Gibes

Buck Buchanan

Jonathan Brewster

Julian Bucknall

Dr. Einstein

Greg Smith

Officer O'Hara

Adam Burns

Lieutenant Rooney

Phil Ginsburg

Mr. Witherspoon

Buck Buchanan

Review from The Gazette

The audience at the Lon Chaney Theatre last Friday night was the
largest I've ever seen at a Star Bar Players production - and the
lively rendition of Joseph Kesselring's "Arsenic and Old Lace" did not
disappoint. No one who sees this show will ever touch elderberry wine
again.

"Arsenic" is simply one of the finest American farces. It's as busy as
a circus, and its combination of the silly and the macabre influenced
a whole generation of comedies. "Arsenic" tells the story of two
little old ladies in Brooklyn who poison old men who come to their
house looking for a room to rent, and have their mad nephew, who
thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt, bury them in the basement.

This tightly written, beautifully paced play contains several
enduringly delightful bits of business, such as a scene in which
theater critic Mortimer describes how a man was gagged and trussed up
in a bad play he's just seen - while right behind him, his evil
brother Jonathan prepares to act it out with Mortimer as the victim.

But a lot of the credit goes to the Star Bar's straightforward,
well-prepared production. The risk a community theater runs in staging
a show with so many characters — 14 — is that the odds are
high some performer will be bad enough to bring things to a halt. That
doesn't happen here, which reflects highly on David Hastings'
direction. Not everyone in the cast is stellar, but there's a good
sense of ensemble, and everyone knows just whom his or her characters
are. And Hastings manages the blocking in this busy play — in
which, like a real circus, it's common to have several things going on
simultaneously — so that the audience always seems to be looking
in the right place.

Not that there aren't stellar performances. As Mortimer, the only sane
Brewster, Ricky Vila-Roger has some memorable double takes and gives
the play the hint of sanity required for the insanity to be funny. As
his aunts, Bonnie Ross and Marge Gentry project airs of quietly
cheerful madness, blithely unaware the murders they commit are somehow
wrong.

Joe Ruffini is loudly over the top as Mortimer's brother, Teddy, a.k.a.
Teddy Roosevelt, while as the evil Jonathan, Julian Bucknall manages
to be menacing without sacrificing great comic timing.

E.J. Rankin's period set gives about as convincing a sense of old
money as the small stage allows (though the high last step to the
second level nearly killed one of the characters Friday night), and
outfits from Saunders Costumes provide the rest of the 1941
atmosphere. The widow's garb for the elder Brewsters gets a laugh all
on its own.

(c) The Gazette, 2001

Review from The Independent

Arsenic Good Recipe for Comedy

by Brooke Robb

What better choice for the Star Bar Players to kick off their
retrospective season, celebrating 30 years of theater, than an
uproarious production of Joseph Kesselring's Arsenic and Old Lace? The
script itself is celebrating an anniversary of its own — it was
first produced January 1941, exactly 60 years ago. Although a smidgen
of the cultural references are outdated, the comedic bulk of this
ingenious murder mystery is timeless.

They say of all the dramatic genres, comedy is the most difficult. It
takes a certain magical recipe of timing, delivery and chemistry to
pull off every joke. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. What
must be so delectable about this script for an actor is that it's so
chock-full of comedic opportunities; if one joke misses its mark,
there's another one just around the corner.

But no matter how ingenious, no script is foolproof. Luckily, the cast
of this production makes more hits than misses in a continual barrage
of laughter. The audience was rolling nearly all the way through Act
II on Friday's opening night of the performance.

The play takes place in the Brewster residence, the home of the town's
two most hospitable old women: Abby and Martha. Their generosities
abound, providing good meals, good drink and even eternal rest for
their lonely lodgers. It seems they've taken up a bad habit of
poisoning the lonely gentlemen for whom they feel sorry. The bodies
are buried in the basement by Teddy, the deranged live-in nephew, who
believes he's Teddy Roosevelt.

The sisters are visited by their sane nephew, Mortimer, who stumbles
upon their maniacal mercy killings by accident. His attempts to save
his aunts from the law are complicated when the evil third nephew,
Jonathan, and his sidekick, Dr. Einstein, return to use the place as a
hideout from the cops.

All in all, the cast is fairly strong. Perhaps most noteworthy is
Julian Bucknall as the nefarious Jonathan. The role, originally
written for Boris Karloff, demands a very strong stage presence, which
Bucknall delivers with an unforgettable entrance.

He appears as a black silhouette at the door of the darkened Brewster
home. He strolls in, transforming the once riotous comedic air into a
cloud of foreboding doom. When the lights go up, the deepened lines of
his brow sever the room as he delivers a penetrating gaze. Bucknall
maintains the heaviness of character with a deep, resonant voice which
he uses to lather each syllable of script. I especially got a kick out
of his fastidious pronunciation of "laboratory."

But what could an actor do to produce Jonathan's serious mood without
the contrasting chemistry provided by his sidekick, the wacky Dr.
Einstein (played by Greg Smith)? Smith must have had fun inventing the
little quirks of the Doctor. With his gangly, wiry frame, he lurches
behind Jonathan, or rather "Chonny," in an awkward gait, rubbing his
head in indecision. He, like Bucknall, uses his voice to produce the
most fanfare — a raspy German accent reminiscent of Igor,
Frankenstein's assistant.

Mortimer, played by Ricardo Vila-Roger, a shrimp in comparison to
Bucknall's hefty frame, surprisingly holds his own against his
threatening brother. Vila-Roger lends the character, played by Cary
Grant in the 1944 film version of the play, a similar Cary Grant-esce
hyper frustration.

I was slightly disappointed in one of the two sisters, Martha (played
by Marge Gentry), who didn't seem to be completely present in her role
and therefore failed to produce dramatic force equal to the other
principal characters. Unfortunately, performances in some of the
smaller roles weren't very convincing either, but their weaknesses
didn't interfere with the flow of laughter.

If you're up for an evening of classic entertainment, Arsenic and Old
Lace may be just the fix. Just don't be tempted to try the sisters'
elderberry wine.